More than 900 Mayo employees have obtained COVID-19 in the past two weeks



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Williams said 93% of employees who contracted the virus did so in the community, and the majority of those who contracted the virus at work did so while eating in a non-masked break room.

“This shows you how easy it is to get COVID-19 in the Midwest,” Willams said, during an afternoon press call. “Our staff are infected primarily from the spread of the community, and this impacts our ability to care for patients. We need everyone in the communities we serve to do their part to limit the spread of COVID-19.

The 900 staff members newly diagnosed with COVID-19 match more than a third of the 2,981 Mayo employees diagnosed since the start of the epidemic. When you add quarantined or taken offline staff to care for relatives, the clinic is currently experiencing a stable shortage of 1,500 system-wide staff, including 1,000 in Rochester.

In other news, with 32 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in the general medicine intensive care unit of the COVID-19 care clinic, the clinic has filled all of its allocated intensive care beds for the virus in Rochester and is in the process of expanding this center from 12 to 13 beds. “We have 32 COVID patients requiring tertiary care, and that’s not good,” Williams said. “It tells us that we are in a wave.”

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The clinic has 18 specialist intensive care units in Rochester in total with several beds in each, but these floors are designed to handle a host of other patients who are not declining in numbers.

Williams said there are currently 73 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in a non-ICU setting in Mayo, 255 system-wide.

In northwestern Wisconsin, Mayo hospitalized 79 patients with COVID-19, nine of them in an intensive care unit. In southeast Minnesota, Mayo hospitalized 11 patients with COVID-19, including three in an intensive care unit. In southwest Minnesota, Mayo hospitalized 38 patients with COVID-19, five in an intensive care unit. And in southwestern Wisconsin, Mayo hospitalized 22 patients with COVID-19, including one in an intensive care unit.

“All of our hospitals are really stretched,” Williams said, “and a lot of them are absolutely full.” Having said that, Williams argued that “we continue to have capacity for anyone who needs our care.”

The clinic is also handling “hundreds and hundreds” of outpatient COVID-19 patients, many with the drug Remdesivir, after discharge, relieving pressure on beds and staff.

Mayo Health Systems performs an average of 5,000 tests per day on its properties. As of Sunday, those tests produced 476 positive cases for a 10% positivity rate in the region and a 20% positivity rate in the Mayo Clinic Health System, although those percentages are declining.

The state of Minnesota reported an additional 5,945 patients with COVID-19 and 26 deaths on Tuesday.

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  • Minnesota Department of Health COVID-19 Hotline: 651-201-3920.
  • COVID-19 Discrimination Hotline: 833-454-0148
  • Minnesota Department of Health COVID-19 website: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) website.

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